I received this anonymous 4-star review, on my sci-fi erotica book, “Nova Terra“, and wanted to react to it, but not on Amazon directly.
Interesting concept. Lots of sex, but tended to get less interesting as it goes on. The sex IMO lacked passion, and tended to get tedious in all the multiple coupling. Not too bad, but just not great.
The thing is, I don’t disagree with the criticism. The first part of the book was written as my second erotica story ever, while the expansion of it took another year to finish and I could feel the sex scenes getting tedious in the writing of them, towards the end.
Looking back, part of the reason is that I handcuffed myself with the expansion’s plot, combined with one of the restrictions of getting erotica published — avoiding sex involving minors.
Start with a scenario in which all but 16 men of a space colony are infertile, so those 16 become responsible for getting 32 women pregnant — each.
After experiencing what an obligatory mating can feel like, my main character and his wife turn to gathering a group together for spouse swapping, also involving the infertile husbands so they aren’t left out.
Flash forward a generation. Group marriage has not only become the norm, it’s codified into law. Monogamy is dead. Young people have to date in groups of at least 4 people and pass both genetic and social compatibility tests before getting married. And have to get married before they’re allotted a farm to run.
Lust isn’t the primary driver in selecting a group to be part of. Passing those tests is. Sharing common interests and being friends first, lovers second. Fail and you have to break up and start over. They take it seriously. Perhaps too seriously. Passion is not why they are together; love and a societal obligation to produce and raise babies is.
In addition, because erotica publishing outlets won’t allow under-age sex, I had to come up with an explanation for why my second generation characters were universally not having sex before becoming adults. I decided Generation 2 would have a counter-reaction to what they saw as licentiousness on the part of the parent’s generation, especially those 16 men who didn’t stop seeking more sex partners long after fulfilling their quotas for births. So, Gen2 kids would postpone sex until marriage, stay faithful within the marriage and since the group couldn’t get married until they were all adults, I could avoid underage sex in my story. And I had the primary quarrel between the two generations worked out.
The effect is that most of the sex scenes in the Generation 2 part of the book are wedding night sex between characters who are virgins. I went for loving and gentle in their intimacy, because having four virgins bumbling their way through at once didn’t seem like a very good idea. While the passionate sex of experienced lovers didn’t fit the situation or the characters very well, either.
When the plot led to an expansion of that marriage, with 4 additional people, it led to another wedding night scene and 4 more virgins, to finish off the story. And a bit too much focus on pairing each of the four women with each of the four men so everyone got their turn.
So, I get the tedious criticism, I do.
Would I plot it the same way now? Probably not. I would avoid expanding the group marriage, for one thing. I would approach the plot involving those four added characters differently, resulting in their own marriage and their wedding night playing out differently than the first Gen2 quartet in the story. Perhaps if I were comfortable writing it, the quartet would really be an MM couple agreeing to marry an FF couple and only having awkward, obligatory MF sex to produce babies. And I’d probably get criticized for that.
That said, I still think the book’s worth reading as-is or I wouldn’t have published it. Even if it only attracts 4-star reviews. Maybe someday I’ll rework it. But I have so many new ideas to tackle that it might be awhile.
Just looking for opinions here: Does every sex scene in erotica have to be passionate sex? Or can softer, loving scenes work, too? Even in a group marriage scenario?
